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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23934421">Mass Effect</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dalish_and_Dragons/pseuds/Dalish_and_Dragons'>Dalish_and_Dragons</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Colonist (Mass Effect), F/F, Mindoir</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 22:35:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,091</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23934421</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dalish_and_Dragons/pseuds/Dalish_and_Dragons</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of Johauna Shepard with Colonist/Ruthless background</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Female Shepard/Liara T'Soni</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Mass Effect</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I tweaked the timeline of this just a little bit, making Shepard 18 when the raid of Mindoir happened instead of 16. General timeline will be the same as it is in the games. In this prologue, I made the doctor aboard the Alliance rescue vessel an asari Matron because that will shape Shepard's perspective relative to the story and will be important later on. Enjoy!</p>
<p>Note: I do not own the rights to any of the Mass Effect intellectual property, this is purely my own headcanon story based on the general storyline of Mass Effect and its characters.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"I wish I could say I did something great, something out of a story or legend. I didn't. I hid in a sewer, laying in trash and filthy water, drinking out of tossed water bottles and listening to the screams and cries of the captured and the tortured. It was my Eighteenth birthday, and God gave me a present I will never forget."<br/>

***<br/>

SSV Normandy, 2183<br/>
"We were eating sundaes and watching the sun set over the hills after our vid. It was my Eighteenth birthday and my dad had taken me to New Endomnton to celebrate; my mom was back at the farm, making the same dinner she made every year for my birthday. I wonder now if things would've turned out differently if she'd come with us, maybe she'd be alive. Maybe they both would be. </p>
<p>We didn't notice anything was wrong, at first. When we heard the screams, we thought it was just from the theater behind us, maybe people were watching a horror vid. We smelled smoke and just assumed someone around us was having a bonfire. It was summer, after all. </p>
<p>We were wrong."<br/>

***<br/>

"Good morning, Johauna." </p>
<p>I heard the clatter of the tray on the bedside table, the smell of fresh toast and the synthetic vanilla-flavored nutrition drink wafting to where I was curled up on the bed, back to everything but the wall and monitors beeping on my left. Same as every morning. </p>
<p>A moment of silence. A sigh. </p>
<p>"We are passing into Citadel Space today, the system surrounding it is incredible. Lieutenant Johnson swore he saw a star go supernova last week. Would you like to look out the windows?" </p>
<p>More silence. It stretched and stretched, like someone had opened the airlock and we were floating in the oppressive silence of deep space. Same as every morning. </p>
<p>"Child, please." </p>
<p>I felt the doctor's weight as she saw on the edge of the bed. She placed a hand on my arm; I jumped at the contact. That was different. </p>
<p>"If you do not eat, I will have to place a line. Please, help yourself to get strong again." </p>
<p>Silence. I closed my eyes; I did not want to see the pity in her beautiful blue face. My eyes started to water. I didn't want to help myself get strong. All I could see, whether my eyes were open or closed, was the look of shock on my father's face as the Batarian's ammo pierced his skin, the dead bodies of strangers in the street, the choking feeling in my throat as I ran and ran through the bodies of my fellow colonists and crouched in the sewers with nothing but the filthy water and screams of those being killed or tortured above me. </p>
<p>Before I could stop it, tears began to leak from my eyes. I squeezed them shut even tighter, but not before the asari noticed; for once, she did not try to speak but simply ran a hand over my back that was curled to her. For once, I let her. </p>
<p>All I could hear was the sobs in tense silence with the alien doctor, and I hated it. I hated her seeing me cry, I hated being in the Alliance ship's hospital, I hated being alive. Why was I alive when every single person in my colony was dead? </p>
<p>Because I'm a coward. Because I crouched in the sewer instead of protecting my dad, instead of standing up to the Batarian bastards, even if I died. I didn't deserve to be here, alive in this bed, being comforted by a stranger. </p>
<p>"Johauna, I...I cannot begin to imagine how it must feel. I am sorry for your loss, truly. I know the words are empty and I wish I could do more, but having lived near 600 years perhaps I can offer something." </p>
<p>She waited as I hiccuped and sniffed, face red from tears and embarrassment. She was right, I didn't want to hear what she had to say. How could her words bring back my family, my colony? How could her words take away the guilt?</p>
<p>"You're right, I do not know how it feels to have my colony killed and tortured, to have spent seven days surviving in a sewer while people were being killed above me, nor do I know how it feels to have my entire world crashing down around me and wishing I were not alive to see it." </p>
<p>For the first time in three days, I turned and met her eyes. To my surprise, they shimmered with asari tears. But she smiled. </p>
<p>"But I do know you are the sole survivor and the daughter of Mindoir. You alone know the stories of your family and colony, and you alone can make them endure. Maybe you could have tried to escape or save your parents, but the slavers would have killed you as well and there would be no one to continue the legacy of your beautiful colony and people. No one would be left to avenge them.</p>
<p>"I had a human bondmate, once. While we have gradually accepted that we will outlive nearly all of our mates and friends, it never quite goes away, missing them. When she passed, I was like you. I wanted to die, to join her in whatever afterlife the Goddess had planned for us. I did not eat or drink, I was wasting away in my apartment, clinging to out last photo we had taken together."</p>
<p>The doctor swept a loose hair from my sticky cheek, her smile widening a little. </p>
<p>"But I did not give in to that grief, the anger, the guilt of surviving. I realized that I alone held a part of herself within me, and that I alone could have her memory endure. I could live for her, the life she had wanted me to continue living even after she passed. And so I ate and drank, and slowly gathered strength from the joy we had shared together, the guilt of outliving her, and from the anger of her passing. It is what drives me each and every day when I rise. Her name was Elana, and she meant everything to me. She always will." </p>
<p>I have no idea what possessed me, but I reached out and took her hand. She squeezed it back, tighter than I realized I needed. </p>
<p>"You are the daughter of Mindoir. Live, Shepard. Live and endure." </p>
<p>I finished the toast and nutrition drink after that, the same as every morning thereafter.</p>
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